It is mostly about stories on the Korean people’s struggles against the U. S. bases in Korea. Hope many of you find some clues and sources here. Please just be kind and fair to the source.많은 분들께서 여기에서 단서들과 자료들을 찾길 바랍니다. 다만 단서와 자료의 기원에 대해 친절하고 공정하게 표기해 주시면 감사하겠읍니다.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Text Fwd: The United States Can and Should Stop the Escalation

* Text sent from Steve Zeltzer on Dec. 19, 2010Korea Policy InstituteThe United States Can and Should Stop the EscalationPaul Liem December 18, 2010

In the wake of live artillery exchange between North and South Koreaon November 23, 2010 resulting in the deaths of four South Koreans onYeonpyeong Island, the United States and South Korea are planning onceagain to conduct live artillery exercises, starting today throughTuesday, from Yeonpyeong Island, and surrounding areas, in spite ofrepeated warnings by Pyongyang that it will again, retaliate.

"Second and third self-defensive blows that cannot be predicted willbe dealt" if the exercises go forward, North Korea warned South Koreaearlier today, according to North Korea's Korean Central News Agency(KCNA). "The intensity and range of the firepower will create asituation more serious than the one on Nov. 23," North Korea'smilitary said.

Efforts by China and Russia to convince the United States and SouthKorea to cancel the live artillery exercises have not borne fruit asyet. Thus there remains the possibility of an outbreak of fighting inthe disputed waters of the West Sea. The possibility that the fightingmight spread uncontrollably beyond the West Sea cannot be discounted.

The Yeonpyeong Island, and several others in the area, lay just southof the "Northern Limit Line" (NLL) which follows the west coast ofNorth Korea just 3 nautical miles from shore. The line, which wasdrawn unilaterally by the United States after the Armistice, is notrecognized by North Korea. Since the early 1970s the internationalcommunity has recognized 12 nautical miles as the conventionaloffshore territorial boundary.

The live artillery drills will take place in South Korean territory,based on the Northern Limit Line, 3 miles off coast, but within NorthKorean territory based on the 12 nautical mile convention. Hence, thecharacterization, "disputed waters," often employed to describe thelocation of deadly naval clashes in the West Sea which occurred in1999, 2002, 2009, last March and November.

In their article on the history of the NLL, Bloomberg, 12/17/2010,Daniel Ten Kate and Peter Green report that U.S. officials believedthat the NLL was "contrary to law." "Then-Secretary of State HenryKissinger wrote in a 1975 classified cable that the unilaterally drawnNorthern Limit Line was 'clearly contrary to international law.' Twoyears before, the American ambassador said in another cable that manynations would view South Korea and its U.S. ally as 'in the wrong' ifclashes occurred in disputed areas along the boundary," they reported.

The live artillery drills are widely viewed as military posturing bythe administration of South Korean President, Lee Myung Bak, howeverthe South Korean armed forces remain under the command of the UnitedStates. Ultimately the finger on the trigger for the planned liveartillery firing, weather permitting, is that of President BarackObama. At the same time New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson, is inPyongyang reporting that North Korea wishes to restart the six partytalks to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and replace the Korean WarArmistice with a peace treaty. China and Russia are also calling uponthe United States and South Korea to restart diplomacy. After twoyears of pursuing a policy of "strategic patience" to contain NorthKorea, it appears that President Obama is facing a stark choicebetween War and Peace in northeast Asia.

In the event that fighting breaks out on the Korean peninsula we urgeour readers to question efforts to indict North Korea as being solelyresponsible for provoking the military clashes in the West Sea. Thisis clearly not the case. The U.S. and South Korea are recklesslypushing tensions on the peninsula to the brink of war as well.President Obama can and should put a stop to the escalation. We cannotagain, blindfolded, be marched off to war. A good way for readers tobegin learning about the background to recent fighting in the West Seawould be to read the full Bloomberg article by Kate and Green, and tostudy the map of the disputed boundaries in the West Sea thataccompanies their article and which is republished above.

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About the Site

The site is managed by an artist living in the South Korea. The photo in the profile is the children in Osan, near the Pyeongtaek where the planned US military base hub in the north east Asia and a large US air base exists. They are the children of a teacher who manages the Children Peace School there. As a part of the class programs, the children in the class drew and wrote in a cloth, their wishes of the peaceful unification of Korea some day.